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25 Years After ‘Shock Treatment,’ Karen Finley Celebrates With Twain House Reading

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“I’ve been privileged in my career,” says Karen Finley, “that I can get attention.”

To those who remember the furor over the National Endowment for the Arts grant given to Finley in 1990, that might be an understatement. She became one of the “NEA Four” whose grants were politicized, widely debated and ultimately rescinded, with the NEA deciding to no longer bestow grants on individual artists.

Who needs that kind of attention? But Finley is making another point entirely. Despite losing funding opportunities following the NEA brouhaha, she was able to continue writing and performing.

“I was fortunate that I did have avenues for my work,” she said. “The support of a whole national network, a complete system working together, was why I was able to have a career. You see less opportunities like that for emerging artists today. There are many people who stay invisible. I don’t think that’s spoken about enough. I’m grateful I even had the privilege of even being censored.”

Connecticut was part of that network that sustained her. Finley performed at Yale University in New Haven and at Real Art Ways in Hartford when she was starting to get noticed as a performance artist.

A shining example of her staying power is the re-publication this year of Finley’s first book, “Shock Treatment.” The 25th anniversary expanded edition (City Lights Publishers, $15.95) with a new introduction by Finley is the focus of her appearance 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17, at the Mark Twain House & Museum, in Hartford. This is a jointly sponsored show with Real Art Ways.

Finley has continued to do live performances, often in the guise of famous historical figures such as Jackie Kennedy, Laura Bush and Liza Minnelli. Her show “George and Martha” was not about who you might think, but rather George W. Bush and Martha Stewart. She does not deal in impressions or impersonations, but in artful, metaphorical performance pieces about contemporary society, using familiar pop culture touchstones. Other formats have involved music and other media. In October, Finley performed some of her writings about the AIDS crisis in New York in the 1980s and ’90s, accompanied by jazz musician Paul Nebenzahl.

“All my appearances,” Finley said, “have a real heartfelt expression of the unsaid finally being spoken. … Since the NEA problems, I’ve had to change my strategy in terms of performance and support. I have to self-produce my own work.”

She also teaches and lectures, and is an arts professor at the Tisch School of the Arts.

“I have not had a commission in 20 years,” she said.

While her performance pieces — most famously “Yams,” involving canned vegetables and other substances — were regularly misunderstood and condemned, Finley claims she’s had no such issues with any of the books she’s published. These include such provocative works as “Pooh Unplugged,” “Enough Is Enough: Weekly Meditations for Living Dysfunctionally,” and “Shock Treatment,” which was first issued in 1990.

“I really should do more writing,” Finley muses. “I have not had the same problems with publishing as with performing. I’ve been able to do the books I wanted to do. My experience with ‘Shock Treatment’ was thrilling and moving and tender. City Lights is such an iconic publisher. It was also interesting being a female writer, amongst all those male voices. I felt I made an impact. I didn’t have to justify or prove what I was doing. I was just accepted and supported. I was a performance artist publishing her book in a poetic form.”

The new edition of “Shock Treatment” is nice, but the book has never been out of print.

“The reason why I decided to reissue it,” Finley explains, “is that I reviewed the writing, and the parts about gender inequality and other women’s issues still held up. What I think about when I present this work is the artist as a historical recorder. It should remind artists that they are a mirror to society.”

The Mark Twain House appearance will feature readings from “Shock Treatment,” plus a touch of Finley’s performance art — some works-in-progress (perhaps about unicorns and popes) that she hopes to try out in front of an audience.

Finley’s also aware of the importance of the venue in which she’ll be appearing. “I’m so interested in the Mark Twain House. I would like to get into a space where I am a medium contacting the spirit of Mark Twain. The humor, parody, politics, looking at issues — he was a genius. And one way he supported himself was with readings and talks.”

“AN EVENING WITH KAREN FINLEY: ‘SHOCK TREATMENT'” is 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 17, at the Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Ave., Hartford. Tickets are $20, $15 for Mark Twain House members. Information: 860-1247-0998, marktwainhouse.org.